Should I Give Up On LPS Corals?

[ruegaroo]

I still consider myself new to the hobby and am always learning new things. My tank (waterbox 60.2) is a little over a year old and is mainly dominated by soft corals. However, I love certain LPS corals and would love to be able to grow them. Whenever I put any LPS corals into my tank they hang on for a while and then slowly die. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong and I guess I'm looking for some kind of insight. My soft corals grow very well while my LPS corals fade away. My parameters have never been crazy out of whack. The only params that swing a bit are nitrate and phosphate and I have been working to keep that as stable as possible. My lighting setting is based on BRS recommended settings for my AI Prime. I have plenty of flow with an MP10 and a Hydor Koralia 1350. I'm growing coralline. I really don't know what the problem is. I feel like I've done a ton of research and I'm doing mostly everything right but stony corals are doomed in my tank.

Is it possible that my tank is just destined to be a softy tank? I wish I could have some LPS but it's just not working out for me.

 

[MERKEY]

Lots of things could be contributing.

What are all of your parameters including salinity.

Do you use RODI ?

 

[zuri]

lotta flow for a small tank do you have any returns aswell? i have a 17g an my mp10 on the lowest setting with 2 returns is almost to much

 

[ruegaroo]

Lots of things could be contributing.

What are all of your parameters including salinity.

Do you use RODI ?

I use RODI. Just tested my params and I think they look good:

NO3 -10
PO4 - .03-.1
Alkalinity - 8.9
Mg - 1320
Ca - 430
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 79

 

[ruegaroo]

I'm gonna send out an ICP test over the weekend and see if there's anything going on that I don't have tests for.

 

[mermaid_life]

I have the same problem so I'm totally following. Thank you for asking!

 

[ruegaroo]

I have the same problem so I'm totally following. Thank you for asking!

Hopefully we can find a solution!

 

[reefluvrr]

I had my frogspawn and hammer corals, gonipora that grew from a small plug to a baseball die due to high tin, copper levels. I'm parameters were all pretty good too. Glad you are doing an ICP test.

 

[ruegaroo]

I had my frogspawn and hammer corals, gonipora that grew from a small plug to a baseball die due to high tin, copper levels. I'm parameters were all pretty good too. Glad you are doing an ICP test.

I had a blasto that grew about 12 heads from 1 and then it just died randomly recently.

 

[mermaid_life]

I had my frogspawn and hammer corals, gonipora that grew from a small plug to a baseball die due to high tin, copper levels. I'm parameters were all pretty good too. Glad you are doing an ICP test.

where did your contaminants come from?

 

[vanpire]

My issue with LPS is temperature. I also keep SPS and like my temperature to be around 80 as SPS (for me at least) grows well at 80. However, I lost many LPS, especially Aussie Gold Torches when temperature was consistently above 78.

i am not sure if this is the case for all tanks, but I noticed that my LPS did better when I lowered the temps to 78, Oh, my frogspawn and hammers were an except to the temp rule. They did fine regardless of temperature.

PS: I only realized this because my LPS always did good in the winter months and badly in the summer months. My halides are not able temperatures above 78 in the winter months, even in AZ, and I limit the use of my heaters to only when the temp is less than 77.

 

[Bob Weigant]

Ive always found LPS much easier and more tolerable to swings in the tank. Now my tank is more LPS dominant and I seen to enjoy it much more

 

[Hermie]

have you tried feeding them mysis? I find that feeding new LPS corals, while somewhat painstaking, can drastically improve their health from adjusting to a new tank

 

[ruegaroo]

Here are my test results. Anybody got any insight? Looks like my iodine is low. My silicon is high. My barium is a little high too. Are these values that important? This also shows my salinity is a little low but I have since brought it up through weekly water changes.

 

[ruegaroo]

If iodine is important to dose, how do I measure to ensure I'm not overdosing the tank?